Kolkata: Discarded aircraft are being ‘repurposed’ and turned into restaurants, video game parlours or offices. Several aircraft—which had been abandoned after several years of use— and were laying at Kolkata airport were recently sold to private companies, according to a report on The Telegraph. These companies were converting the fuselage into restaurants. They were selling other components, such as the landing gear or wheels, to aviation training institutes for demonstration purposes.
The engines are repaired for use as spares. For people living along Jessore Road and the Belgharia Express in Kolkata, the sight of these huge aircraft being transported on trailers had become a common sight over the past few months.
Calcutta-based e-commerce company, mjunction, has facilitated the sale of five such aircraft in a year. These were sold by Air India, an mjunction official told The Telegraph. The buyers of the last two aircraft will reportedly turn those into restaurants.
The company informed that the trend of repurposing aircraft had caught on over the last few years. “The organisation selling the aircraft wanted us to get a good scrap price for them, but we got them buyers who will repurpose those,”Vinaya Varma, MD and CEO, mjunction, a joint venture between Tata Steel and Steel Authority of India Ltd, told The Telegraph. The last two aircraft were sold in Calcutta for about Rs 5.5 crore.
An Air India official said the airline was selling off some of the old aircraft from its fleet of Airbus A-319s—which are over 20 years old— with 122 passenger seats each. Recently, Patna-based Boss Solutions bought an Airbus A-319 and it is planning to convert it into a restaurant in West Bengal’s Purulia.
Another discarded aircraft was transported to Andhra Pradesh from Kolkata by road. It would be then sent to Chennai. A maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) company has bought it for ₹2.3 crore. It will be used for making a restaurant, the company claimed.
